Good Gig, Bad Gig.

First Xmas party of the season for me. Small New Forrest hotel with a history of noise complaints. Horrible load in, so many steps and narrow corridor that the rock n roller was virtually redundant. I had been warned so was set up in plenty of time.
Small room with 3 circular tables with ten people on each.. Began to get worried as had no finger tapping or interaction with the background music.
So set off at 9 o’clock with 3 hours to cover. Painful until the the last 30 minutes when we had everyone on the dancefloor singing and our first noise complaint, from the singing not the music!
Midnight comes and all 30 people are crying out for 1 more and not a member of staff in sight Play Wonderwall at half volume and the staff arrive to end it all.
Lots of thanks and congratulations from hotel (they couldn't hear the music all night) just the guests! Really not a satisfying evening though.
Let’s hope the other 8 Xmas parties are better!

A joint 21st & 50th birthday party for me last night in a barn 25 minutes drive from my house in VERY foggy conditions. I missed the turning TWICE thanks to the roadside sign not being lit but still arrived in plenty of time.. 5.30pm for a 7 start? That's me!

Turned out that the venue had been decked out with an indoor marquee & looked very spiffy indeed. My client - absolutely lovely folks who'd emailed me a spotify list of over 140 tracks and assured me 'it's what the birthday girl wants'. Oh well, I thought, and I resolved to get through as many as possible in the time allowed. It was down as a 1am finish so I quoted accordingly.. who says you can't get that round here hahaha.

I knew it was a sizeable place so packed Bertha.. the usual rig but with gravity stands for lights, quad pix battens & I took uplights with me juuust incase. The dancefloor was central right up against the wall of the marquee so setting up there was out of the question. No issues - simply put a speaker & light stand each side of the dancefloor & set my booth up off to the side, right? Right! With a clutch of long IEC & XLR cable I ran wiring for the other side behind the curtain for safety & aesthetics.. the rig didn't look like much but oh what a job it does. 4 movers, 2 LED FX pars & a quadpix mounted on each gravity upright pole.. and I opted to put ku klux clan outfits on the speaker stands to help them blend in against the white backdrop. PA was the usual RCF HD12a & for once I was actually more or less in front of a speaker, so my earplugs went in come dancing time.

I played BG music as people arrived, had early dancers to Indeep etc (pre-requested) then it was hog roast food time & a fun speech from the birthday girl's dad.. then Uptown Funk & dancing all the way til just past 1am. It was an absolute stormer of a night with tracks you might not have figured would fly at a 21st going down very well indeed. I mean stuff like Van Halen Jump & Europe's Final Countdown going down well with young & older alike.. who'd have thought it?! Just after 11pm a girl came up demanding to use my mic. She was drunk & she wasn't the client, so the answer was a firm NO... "oh go on I just wanna say happy birthday"... I told her MAYBE closer to midnight.. maybe. Cue accusations of being boring etc.. she went away but returned a few times & eventually went to see my client to complain. He approached me & asked politely if there was maybe any possibility that at around midnight I could... "Already way ahead of you. Since I heard you say in your speech Alice doesn't turn 21 until midnight my plan has been to have a countdown & make a big deal of it. Is that ok?" .. Well of course LOL.

So at about 10 seconds til midnight, I looped a section of 'The Time' by BEP & everybody did a big countdown & we all sang happy birthday.. and then.. well then I just HAD to play (it was on the request list) Smokie - Living Next Door To Alice (Clean version).. to which all the crowd added the "who the.. " parts. It was undoubtedly a highlight for me. It's not always about what you play but when isn't it?

The last hour brought requests aplenty & I went into quick mix mode for the last 30 minutes. We ended the night with Proud Mary (a guest request) & as I'd expected screams of one more I lined up Sclub Reach.. As predicted they wanted one more so I said OK.. you can have one more. On one condition. Have a selfie with me & we have a deal..
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Originally Posted by Shakermaker Promotions

Don't get me wrong, everything flowed well, everybody appeared to enjoy themselves and the landlord was more than happy.....but I can say with 99.999% confidence that last night was my last ever gig. I'll still keep hold of my kit as well as the projectors and uplighters etc because you just never know what may happen in the future and it is always something to fall back on. It scares me that IF things do go downhill with whatever I am doing, and I need to go back to the DJ thing, IF I still don't have the passion for it then I'll have nothing. I hope that makes sense.

I know one thing though. I certainly don't envy those that are out already doing the Christmas parties...... No thank you. I've done enough of those to last me a lifetime.

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Hmm, Gary, perhaps the intensity of your years as a DJ has resulted in a sort of " burnout"? I regard that as a shame. :( Whatever you do in the future, let's hope it all goes well for you.

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Originally Posted by DJColsie

Lots of thanks and congratulations from hotel (they couldn't hear the music all night) just the guests! Really not a satisfying evening though.
Let’s hope the other 8 Xmas parties are better!

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I think we've all been there. Likewise, mine last night was technically a success, but I didn't regard it as such. I suppose I was due that, to be honest. By the same vein, your next one should be a corker. :)

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Originally Posted by Nakatomi

A joint 21st & 50th birthday party for me last night in a barn 25 minutes drive from my house in VERY foggy conditions. I missed the turning TWICE thanks to the roadside sign not being lit but still arrived in plenty of time.. 5.30pm for a 7 start? That's me!

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Round here sonny, that's a late arrival! 5.20pm, and still beaten by two other suppliers.:o:o:o

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Originally Posted by Excalibur

Round here sonny, that's a late arrival! 5.20pm, and still beaten by two other suppliers.:o:o:o

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Because of afore mentioned load in issues, I arrived at my venue at 5pm for a 7pm start. I do aim to be set up 30 mins before start time though!

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Originally Posted by Excalibur

Hmm, Gary, perhaps the intensity of your years as a DJ has resulted in a sort of " burnout"? I regard that as a shame. :( Whatever you do in the future, let's hope it all goes well for you.



I think we've all been there. Likewise, mine last night was technically a success, but I didn't regard it as such. I suppose I was due that, to be honest. By the same vein, your next one should be a corker. :)

Round here sonny, that's a late arrival! 5.20pm, and still beaten by two other suppliers.:o:o:o

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If I get an inkling there is a band on with me, I'll get there at 4pm for a 7pm start, which usually gets me in and set up before they come and pinch every inch of space.

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Originally Posted by Shakermaker Promotions

Well, not really. It may have been because I was just too knackered? I think though, if I am being honest, I have just lost the passion for the whole thing. 30 years is most definitely enough for me. I know there are plenty that have been doing it for longer and admire their passion for the job. To have the same passion to go out week on week in this day and age is not for me anymore.
Don't get me wrong, everything flowed well, everybody appeared to enjoy themselves and the landlord was more than happy.....but I can say with 99.999% confidence that last night was my last ever gig. I'll still keep hold of my kit as well as the projectors and uplighters etc because you just never know what may happen in the future and it is always something to fall back on. It scares me that IF things do go downhill with whatever I am doing, and I need to go back to the DJ thing, IF I still don't have the passion for it then I'll have nothing. I hope that makes sense.

I know one thing though. I certainly don't envy those that are out already doing the Christmas parties...... No thank you. I've done enough of those to last me a lifetime.

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The very first gig I done I came home and made a promise to my wife. "the time I come home and hate what I am doing is the time I pack in"

I have always had that belief as I think DJing is something you MUST enjoy. The problem I have now though is when that day comes I don't know what other job I can do that brings in the income I have for the hours I work haha.

One thing I could never do though is going back to having a job AND DJing - I am knackered as it is (and like my holidays too much) lol

For me though I LOVE xmas parties (yeah one of the few). If I could do xmas 12 months of the year I would.

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Originally Posted by ppentertainments

The very first gig I done I came home and made a promise to my wife. "the time I come home and hate what I am doing is the time I pack in"

I have always had that belief as I think DJing is something you MUST enjoy. The problem I have now though is when that day comes I don't know what other job I can do that brings in the income I have for the hours I work haha.

One thing I could never do though is going back to having a job AND DJing - I am knackered as it is (and like my holidays too much) lol

For me though I LOVE xmas parties (yeah one of the few). If I could do xmas 12 months of the year I would.

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Funnily enough - I'm the same now.
I've had MANY full time jobs from retail manger, to working in personal finance and for the past 20 years, a software developer.

Do you know what - doing what I do full time now as a wedding DJ knocks all of those into the park!

Yes, it's bloody tough at times. Yes, it's expensive and hard work to be self employed, and no, I don't earn what I used to earn.
BUT....I wouldn't change things for the world. For the first time in forever (kids' DJ's will get that one!), I'm actually happy and relaxed at doing what I do. I work 1, maybe 2 nights a week. I still feed the family, I still pay the bills.

The upside is that I'm nothing like as stressed as I used to be. I get to go out for a lunchtime walk with the better half. I get to decorate the house and do all of those jobs that I couldn't do in full time work.

What's not to like?

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Originally Posted by Imagine

So....I'm set up in one "end" of the "L", and run a very long cable down to my still very favourite Maui5Go (they're AWESOME speakers and the battery life is incredible!). First technical snag of the day and actually, an enlightenment. The main PA was obviously connected to the main output of the Denon, and the Maui run from the booth sockets. Music was fine on the Maui...no mic output though! WTF???

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Denon have been nice enough to think about those of us who work in a club and have a need for a booth output and those who just need an additional output. You can turn the mic on and off on the booth output. From memory you have to hold down talkover while powering on - check the manual for more details :D

Julian

With Virtual DJ you can choose to have the mic in the booth output or not in the settings

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Originally Posted by DJColsie

With Virtual DJ you can choose to have the mic in the booth output or not in the settings

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Depends heavily on the controller and if the audio from the Mic is routed through VDJ as a separate input. On the Denon's, it's not, so the setting to control this behavior is in the controller.

Julian